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Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Debunking misconceptions on the Caravan System - Attackers don't need extra risk.
Liniker
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
I have had this discussion with many, many people over the last few years, and I think I finally understand where the majority of the misconceptions about the PvP systems in AoC such as the Caravan System come from,
A large portion of the players and Content Creators that are following AoC and sharing feedback are mainly theme-park MMO players, from WoW, to FF14, to New World or BDO, there is a very large portion of the community that never experienced a tradepack system with pvp, that makes it completely understandable that takes like "only guilds will run caravans" or "everyone will be attacking caravans and no one will do them" exist.
The undeniable fact is, this system is not new, its not original to AoC, it has been done before with multiple iterations, but all with the same core feature in place: Deliver tradepacks/resources for you or your guild's own self-interest and profit, and risk being attacked and losing your shit with minor to no risk on the attacking side,
and it always worked, all the way from 2004 with Silkroad, to 2013 with Archeage, and 2023 with Ravendawn, all those games had other issues, of course, but you won't hear players commenting that no one would do tradepacks in Silkroad or Archeage because of attackers having no risk, and those tradepacks were extremely popular, from solo players to small groups, to large guilds everyone ran tradepacks and why? because of the Reward... making 5x or 10x profit, transporting high-demand resources those benefits are worth the risk, this is how it always played out,
even now in 2024 with Ravendawn, an "indie" mmo that launched has this same system, delivering packs getting a % bonus based on distance traveled people do it all the time and again, from solos to large guilds, more often than not, in every 5 trips maybe you lose 1 or 2, and that is still worth it, especially when a lot of players do them with groups to reduce the risk, and you don't see everyone walking around in a massive zerg destroying every caravan all the time, they are better off not wasting time and doing their own caravans if they have the numbers so they can min-max their profit
also, you don't need to worry about no one helping you defend your caravan, first, this is supposedly a group content that you need to make friends, get in a guild, make allies and arrange to run important caravans together, but also, defending caravans in your region happens naturally, in AoC your reputation matters a lot more than in most MMOs, this is a region-based game, the META, the most effective way to play is by not being on everyone's KOS list within your own region, so you can actually farm and progress, players will naturally fight off foreign attackers in their own territory, and that's where all the "PUG" defenders will come from, your neighbor citizens helping to keep your node region safe, and ofc, players will go assault caravans from different nodes, in a territory vs territory style gameplay, there is no reason to assume AoC will be different from every other game with similar systems that we had before,
There is no extra risk needed for attackers in AoC, the risk vs reward doesn't come in the form of everything being 50/50, with the caravan system the reward is delivering the caravans, and the risk is getting attacked by people, and the game needs those attackers, people can't be safely running caravans all day long this would be extremely negative for the economy, there are sinks associated with caravan parts being destroyed and loot is sunk when players open crates, all this adds to the economy,
now, if we want to talk about playing with respawn timers, impacting caravan attacker/defender progress tree by losing XP in that horizontal progression when failing events that's great, and should be tested in A2, but introducing corruption to caravans or introducing even more new systems like a "bandit" status things like that with developers getting their fingers on systems that are supposed to be player-driven, that is completely unnecessary,
but again, by looking at some of the feedback most players who have these concerns about the system not working, seem to be players who haven't experienced similar systems before, and that's understandable, its OK to not have experienced on every single aspect about MMOs, the thing is... especially when you are a content creator, sharing baseless input on things like that with dramatic thumbnails and titles will often just result in followers echoing those and creating unnecessary concerns,
now ofc, most CCs do it because it gets people commenting and gets them views, but If you get caught in these discussions, before pressing the panic button I'd recommend just relax, wait for A2, test things out and see for yourself,
A large portion of the players and Content Creators that are following AoC and sharing feedback are mainly theme-park MMO players, from WoW, to FF14, to New World or BDO, there is a very large portion of the community that never experienced a tradepack system with pvp, that makes it completely understandable that takes like "only guilds will run caravans" or "everyone will be attacking caravans and no one will do them" exist.
The undeniable fact is, this system is not new, its not original to AoC, it has been done before with multiple iterations, but all with the same core feature in place: Deliver tradepacks/resources for you or your guild's own self-interest and profit, and risk being attacked and losing your shit with minor to no risk on the attacking side,
and it always worked, all the way from 2004 with Silkroad, to 2013 with Archeage, and 2023 with Ravendawn, all those games had other issues, of course, but you won't hear players commenting that no one would do tradepacks in Silkroad or Archeage because of attackers having no risk, and those tradepacks were extremely popular, from solo players to small groups, to large guilds everyone ran tradepacks and why? because of the Reward... making 5x or 10x profit, transporting high-demand resources those benefits are worth the risk, this is how it always played out,
even now in 2024 with Ravendawn, an "indie" mmo that launched has this same system, delivering packs getting a % bonus based on distance traveled people do it all the time and again, from solos to large guilds, more often than not, in every 5 trips maybe you lose 1 or 2, and that is still worth it, especially when a lot of players do them with groups to reduce the risk, and you don't see everyone walking around in a massive zerg destroying every caravan all the time, they are better off not wasting time and doing their own caravans if they have the numbers so they can min-max their profit
also, you don't need to worry about no one helping you defend your caravan, first, this is supposedly a group content that you need to make friends, get in a guild, make allies and arrange to run important caravans together, but also, defending caravans in your region happens naturally, in AoC your reputation matters a lot more than in most MMOs, this is a region-based game, the META, the most effective way to play is by not being on everyone's KOS list within your own region, so you can actually farm and progress, players will naturally fight off foreign attackers in their own territory, and that's where all the "PUG" defenders will come from, your neighbor citizens helping to keep your node region safe, and ofc, players will go assault caravans from different nodes, in a territory vs territory style gameplay, there is no reason to assume AoC will be different from every other game with similar systems that we had before,
There is no extra risk needed for attackers in AoC, the risk vs reward doesn't come in the form of everything being 50/50, with the caravan system the reward is delivering the caravans, and the risk is getting attacked by people, and the game needs those attackers, people can't be safely running caravans all day long this would be extremely negative for the economy, there are sinks associated with caravan parts being destroyed and loot is sunk when players open crates, all this adds to the economy,
now, if we want to talk about playing with respawn timers, impacting caravan attacker/defender progress tree by losing XP in that horizontal progression when failing events that's great, and should be tested in A2, but introducing corruption to caravans or introducing even more new systems like a "bandit" status things like that with developers getting their fingers on systems that are supposed to be player-driven, that is completely unnecessary,
but again, by looking at some of the feedback most players who have these concerns about the system not working, seem to be players who haven't experienced similar systems before, and that's understandable, its OK to not have experienced on every single aspect about MMOs, the thing is... especially when you are a content creator, sharing baseless input on things like that with dramatic thumbnails and titles will often just result in followers echoing those and creating unnecessary concerns,
now ofc, most CCs do it because it gets people commenting and gets them views, but If you get caught in these discussions, before pressing the panic button I'd recommend just relax, wait for A2, test things out and see for yourself,
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Comments
That being said... I would also very naturally defend Caravans without being motivated by Risk v Reward.
And I don't understand why Attackers would need extra Risk or why people think everyone will atttack Caravans and few people will be motivated to defend Caravans.
Could be that the people who are concerned about Caravan Attackers are the same people who are concerned about Corruption not working - because they haven't played games with Karma.
Could also be that the only people who truly enjoy playing Ashes will be those who enjoyed playing L2 and ArcheAge.
We shall see.
That difference is in that the reward for a caravan in Archeage is set by the server, and is new coin. You use trade runs in Archeage to generate wealth on the server, not to redistribute it.
In Ashes, when you load a whole pile of resources in to a caravan and transport it to a different node, your reward isnt new coin or anything - it is simply the fact that you now have those resources in that new node. Obviously this is for personal caravans, but that is what most of the discussion is about.
What this means is that if people in your new node are willing to pay 25% more for that resource at this new node, your gains for running a caravan arent 5x or 10x, they are 0.25x.
Then in Archeage you hav e the fact that you still get 40% of the turnin value of a pack you created.
So, some basic math.
If you spend 10g in Archeage on packs and the turnin value is the low end of what you have stated (5x), you stand to get 50g at the end. If someone takes your packs and turns them in to the same place, you only get 40% of that 50g - or 20g. Thus, even if your packs are taken, you still make a profit- just less of a profit.
In Archeage, if you put 10g in to a caravan and transport it, if you get that additional 25% that people may pay at the new node for the raw materials, you end up with 12.5g. If you are attacked and defeated, you lose all 10g worth of materials.
So, in Archeage if you run a 10g trade run, you stand to get either 20g or 50g. In Ashes if you run a 10g caravan you stand to get 12.5g or lose all 10g.
In both scenarios, the attacker has the same level of risk.
Something needs to change.
Well, they already risk just dying outright when they attack. Which is normal. And if they succeed in killing you they now have to get those materials out of there. The risk imo is that they dont just win the second they beat you, they now have to take on the risk of transporting same as you did.
I get what you are meaning though, for the input of a caravan the attackers have no base buy in. I think thats fine, Their role is to be the risk to defenders. I don't really think there needs to be anything built in to deter attackers.
Not exactly true. When you kill NPCs, you get glint which you can trade for commodities, which you can sell for a price. That is new money. When you use the caravan, you get more money for the commodities or more new money. While resources like ores don't create new money, they are used to give nodes access to foreign resources and it redistributes money.
Also, the calculation seems off. People from the magical forest, for example, won't pay much for magical trees because they are everywhere, literally a 15-minute run to gather some. But think there's not a single magical tree in the desert. And the elven forest is like 2 hours away, plus the locals will kill you because they don't want foreigners to piss off their ancient fairy god by gathering too much or in the wrong region of the forest. I'm sure you'd get at least like a 100% increase in price if you're not right out making up crazy high prices hoping that none of the buyers know the real price of this item. Here's a calculation I think is more accurate. I'll continue the example from above. You have 100 magical wood, each worth 1 gold in the magical forest node. That's 100g reward for your gathering investment. Or you add additional risk and ship it to the desert. Here you can for sure sell for 2 Gold, but probably 5-10g are more realistic. Even if you sell each only for 2 gold, you make 200g for your gathering and transporting, but you could lose your mats. If you can sell them for 10 each, you have 900 gold more than selling them in your node. Now let's say you farm this material and wait for a time in the year when your material is not gatherable anywhere on the whole map of Verra. And then you wait for the middle of that season where people have burned through their own stash but it's still a while till the resource becomes gatherable again. Then you bring your 1k magical wood and your trusted guild and make a world tour selling only to people that are willing to give you 20 gold each. On a 10k server with a rare mat at the right time, you'll probably find enough people to sell this to. Congrats, you have 20k gold after your world tour with mats that usually would make you around 1k in your own node. Guess what, if you only give me 0.25x then I'm not selling to you, and I'm waiting for someone that actually needs the mats. Of course, this only works when you are a top gatherer in your area so you have kind of a monopoly on some resources.
I think getting gold from a bandit turning in your loot is a super bad mechanic. If I can't defend my caravan, I don't deserve any loot, so I have another reason to get stronger and more skillful to the point where I can defend my caravan.
Unlike others, I'm not overly concerned about attackers not having a buy in, as you put it. My concern is that from what we know, the return simply isnt there for those running a caravan.
In Archeage, if you lost your packs, you still usually made a profit. In Ash3s, you stand to lose the raw materials outright, and also lose the caravan.
As we understand it, those running the caravan stand to make less money for a success, and lose more for a failure. This is what needs to he changed, imo.
I don't really have a problem with the caravan system, there's something that, as I see it, nobody is taking into account: time and expectations. Unless you have a spy, there's no way to know when a caravan is departing and what valuables it has.
Are you telling me that I'll be wasting time, hours or days waiting for a caravan to pass who knows where, just to attack it? I beg your pardon but it doesn't make sense at all.
THIS is a huge risk: wasted time for an empty or not valuable caravan or impossible to attack because it's stronger than my team.
The caravan system is fine as it is.
Wasting time and social status are 2main factors to just attack caravans that will actually have a real benefit for you.
@Noaani
<Sigh> Can you please site your source for this nonsense?
You have a loooong history of simply making things up.
I believe the utility is the more important part but I could be wrong. We also dont know what "value" is for their game yet. I remember playing Blade and soul, and having not even finished a single gold in a copper/silver/gold setup because they just set things to be very low output. But that just meant even a copper was valuable. So we do need to wait to see if the increase might actually be worth.
But anyway, back to the utility part. There are going to be nodes you need to travel to in order to craft certain things, requiring you to bring processed and raw materials that they might not have.
I think there will be a cottage industry in the near future studying how people follow video games. People who hate the game, but are obsessed with following it.... trying to change it. The mental health challenges in our modern world are creating some interesting effects.
This is fascinating cultural stuff.
This is incorrect, I'd recommend reading the wiki to know more about player commodities https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Player_commodities
running caravans with commodities is the primary way of introducing gold to the economy, you generate wealth using caravans, just like in Archeage or many other MMOs with this system, you grind, make your tradepacks (in AoC you build packs using glint=your time, not gold) and you get paid Gold with a % bonus paid by NPCs for the further you deliver, transporting personal resources its just an extra feature.
everything else you said on that reply is also incorrect, because you are arguing as if caravans are mainly used to transport your gathered wood/stone from one node to the other and sell it to other players,
I don't think you played Archeage... that's not how it works, and not how it will work in AoC either.
he has been known to make things up to support his 'position'.
I am *CLEARLY* talking about resource caravans here.
You know, the original base purpose for caravans. Move ingredients resources for crafting from one node to another.
Sure, there are other uses for caravans. However, I am not talking about them, again, *CLEARLY*.
Yeah, I mis-spoke there and said Archeage rether than Ashes. Anyone reading along wanting to understand rether than just wanting to find something to disagree with would hav e picked up on my mistake there for what it was (as others above you did).
You didnt though, you would rather argue and disagree, because that's who you are.
Regardless of what your intent is. You're still wrong. Since commodities can be transported for gold. So the systems aren't majorly different.
no need to make it personal, it's not my fault you don't know what tf you talking about as usual,
you said you were talking about personal caravans, and proceeded to go on a rant on why there is a huge difference between AoC and AA because AA had tradepacks and AoC didn't... leaving aside the main point of discussion in the past months the and literally the Only thing shown in the first caravan stream which are AoC's tradepacks... commodities.
It was a qualifier prior to my point. If you wish to excuse that qualifier as you disagree with it, that is fine - but the point I was making still stands.
In Archeage, if I make a trade pack and lose it in PvP, I still get 40% of the value for what ever it is turned in for. Ashes has no equivlent to this as yet, and needs one.
That is the point I was making. If you wish to equate commodity caravans to trade packs even more so than I equated resource caravans, then this point simply becomes more important - not less.
See my above post to Vyril.
The point I was making (to anyone that read the post) was that Archeage has a built in failsafe for trade packs. Trade pack returns in Archeage go 40% to the crafter and 60% to whom ever turned them in. Thus, you always made that 40%.
Anyone that PvP'd in Archeage knows this is how it works - this leads me to the assumption that you didn't play Archeage, didn't PvP in Archeage, or willfully omitted this fact from your OP in an attempt to argue that what we know of caravans in Ashes so far is acceptable.
Or you just forgot this major factor of the economic balance of trade packs in Archeage - which then leads me to question anything you think you know of MMORPG's even more than I already do. However, I am more willing to assume you willingly omitted it as including it wouldn't support the argument you are trying to make that caravans as we understand them in Ashes are currently OK.
So, as I said in the post you seem to have not read (but have skimmed for points to argue), Ashes and Archeage have a similar level of risk associated with attacking a caravan/trade run, but the people making that caravan/trade run face disproportionate losses. This is what needs attention still.
I *FULLY* expect to see some sort of return in regards to commodity caravans to whom ever traded glint for said commodity. I would expect Steven to start testing it at closer to 25% as opposed to Archeages 40%, however. Once this is in place and added to your OP, I fully agree that the system is perfectly fine - but without it in place the system is broken.
The thing with that is that it does nothing at all for the caravans that are the actual backbone of the games economy - the resource caravans. They are still a major issue in regards to potential gains vs potential losses - they are where the real actuall issue with caravans are - which is why I was talking about them.
Edit to add: the other major balancing point between Archeage and Ashes is the cost of the vehicle itself.
In Ashes, if your caravan is destroyed - it is destroyed. In Archeage, it is simply damaged and can be repaired for reasonably cheap.
Since caravan components in Ashes are able to be upgraded and such, there is something of an assumption that this would be fairly expensive (why would there be an upgrade path if not?). Thus, this is even more of a cost to the defender should they lose - throwing the balance even further out.
It's too far down the road now (sorry) and its going to have the crap exploited out of it in some way on launch, and/or get pretty boring or predictable, however much they think they've balanced it. Alpha 2 may be able to iron out some issues, but it can't accurately replicate what will happen at launch.
Goods transport should be something you pay for to get done, with maybe a risk of NPC attack you insure against with guards or gold. I think there are other, better ways to get players to band together for group pvp.
I'll still try to play Ashes of Caravans, but with fingers crossed.
The stranger's eyes lifted to the blood red cloud on the horizon.
'We have to move. It's not safe here.'
OP is about AoC not needing extra risk for attackers, if you agree risk is similar to AA, a game that implemented the system successfully, you agree with OP, I don't know why you going on about balancing in other aspects,
I didn't just use AA as an example exactly because each MMO has their own differences in the execution, I used Silkroad, Archeage, Ravendawn, theres Albion and EvE as well, I'm not interested in going deep about balancing numbers because that makes no fucking sense for a game in development that they will have years of testing
and comparing profit or anything number related from AA is even more pointless due to how the economy is different in both games
that simply means you don't like the system, and that's ok, but as I mentioned above, lots of MMOs did this system before and it always works just fine,
Import/export to safe places and you are OK.
I am slightly concerned about some of the issues that has been brought up by other players, but quite honestly, you addressed those concerns quite well in your post so I feel more at ease. And most importantly, I have faith in that Intrepid will fine tune balancing (including risk/reward balance) during A2 (and post launch, if necessary)!
Either way - thank you very much, @Liniker for your review. I for one appreciate it. :]
It will be up to the people of the node to protect their citizens. They can do it directly by killing the attackers, or they can do it indirectly by penalising their node, either by trade or force.
You might get 'bad' nodes, but for surrounding nodes it will be in their interest to 'sort out' those bad people for the good of themselves.
But it is the one I know inside and out, and so is the one I was able to immediately point out why your analysis was wrong.
Fact is, in a system like this, the balance of both sides matters, not just the risk of one side. People look at the current system and can see it is blatantly lopsided - which is why people have an issue with it.
Attempting to address only one side of this balance is misleading - again I have to assume willfully as it is on brand for you.
So, in conclusion, SOMETHING in relation to even commodity caravans (let alone resource caravans) needs to change. It "could be" adding a failsafe like Archeage had, but it could also be adding risk on to the attacker side of things.
Until the system as a whole is balanced, no one side of that system is balanced.
I dont really get why it needs to be an equal risk on both sides though. The bandit didnt decide to roll the dice for higher rewards. The defender did when they made the caravan. The only balancing I would want to see here is making sure the rewards are worth the risk for the caravan runners. Bandits increase the value, utility increases the value, and distance traveled increases the value. If theres too much busy work/risk for bandits to have to do in order to start attacking caravans, that indirectly reduces the value of the caravan turn ins because more will be made.